Prince Fortunatus, William Black [pdf e book reader .txt] 📗

scene-painter and stage-manager, as it were, got out some sheets of drawing-paper, on which she had sketched the various groups; and Lady Adela brought forth the MS. books of the play, which had been prepared under the careful (and necessary) supervision of Lionel Moore.

"Rockminster will have to figure as the audience," his eldest sister said, as she was looping up her long train of silver-gray satin preparatory to going out.

"That is a part I could play to perfection," put in Miss Lestrange's brother.

"Oh, no," Lady Adela remonstrated. "You may be wanted for Palaemon. You see, this is how it stands. The young shepherd was originally played at Drury Lane by a boy--and in Dublin by an actress; it is a boy's part, indeed. Well, you know, we thought Cis Yorke would snap at it; and she was eager enough at first; but"--and here Lady Adela smiled demurely--"I think her courage gave way. The boy's dress looked charming as Rose sketched it for her--and the long cloak made it quite proper, you know--and very picturesque, too--but--but I think she's frightened. We can't count on her. So we may have to call on you for Palaemon, Mr. Lestrange."

"And I have taken the liberty of cutting out the song, for it's rather stupid," said Lionel Moore, "so you've only got a few lines to repeat."

"The fewer the better," replied Mr. Percy Lestrange, who was possibly right in considering that, with his far-from-regular features and his red hair and moustache, his appearance as a handsome young swain should not have too much prominence given it.

Notwithstanding that it had been Miss Lestrange's audacious proposal that they should go masquerading in the open air, she was a wise young virgin, and she took care before going out to thrust a soft silk handkerchief into the square opening of her dress; the Ladies Sybil and Rosamund followed her example by drawing lace scarfs round their necks and shoulders; it was the young matron who was reprehensibly careless, and who, when the French windows were thrown open, went forth boldly, and without any wrap at all, into the cool air of the dawn. But for a second, as they stood on the little stone balcony above the steps leading down to the garden, this group of revellers were struck silent. The world looked so strange around them. In the mysterious gray light, that had no sort of kindly warmth in it, the grass of the lawn and the surrounding trees seemed coldly and intensely green; and cold and intense, with no richness of hue at all, were the colors of the flowers in the various plots and beds. Not a bird chirped as yet. Not a leaf stirred. But in this ghostly twilight the solitary gas lamps were beginning to show pale; and in the southern heavens the silver sickle of the moon, stealing over to the west, seemed to be taking the night with it, and leaving these faintly lilac skies to welcome the uprising of the new day.

At first, indeed, there was something curiously uncanny--something unearthly and phantasmal almost--in the spectacle of these figures, the women in white, the men in black, moving through this wan light; and their voices sounded strangely in the dead silence; but ere long a soft saffron tinge began to show itself in the east; one or two scraps of cloud in the violet skies caught a faint touch of the coming dawn; there was a more generous tone on the masses of foliage, on the flower-beds, and on the grass; and now the cheerful chirping of the birds had begun among the leaves. And what more beautiful surroundings could have been imagined for the production of any pastoral entertainment? The wide lawn was bounded on one side by a dense thicket of elms and limes and chestnuts, and on the other by a tall, dark hedge of holly; while here and there was a weeping-willow, round the stem of which a circular seat had been constructed, the pendulous branches enclosing a sort of rustic bower. As this fantastic performance went forward, the skies overhead slowly became more luminous; there was a sense of warmth and clear daylight beginning to tell; the birds were singing and chattering and calling everywhere; and the sweet, pure air of the morning, as it stirred, and no more than stirred, the trembling leaves, brought with it a scent of mignonette that seemed to speak of the coming of June.

Laura, in the person of Lady Adela Cunyngham, had reproached the faithless Damon (who was no other than Mr. Lionel Moore)--


"Ungrateful Damon, is it come to this?
Are these the happy scenes of promis'd bliss?
Ne'er hope, vain Laura, future peace to prove;
Content ne'er harbors with neglected love."


--and Damon had replied (not mumbling his lines, as a privileged actor sometimes does at rehearsal, but addressing them properly to the hapless Laura)--


"Consider, fair, the ever-restless pow'r,
Shifts with the breeze, and changes with the hour:
Above restraint, he scorns a fixt abode,
And on his silken plumes flies forth the rambling god."


Then Lady Sybil took out her violin from its case and drew the bow across the strings.

"We'll let you off the song, if you like, Mr. Moore," Lady Adela said to the young baritone, but in a very half-hearted kind of way.

"Oh, no," said he, pleasantly, "perhaps this may be my only rehearsal."

"The audience," observed Lord Rockminster, who, at a little distance, was lying back in a garden-chair, smoking a cigarette--"the audience would distinctly prefer to have the song sung."

Lady Sybil again gave him the key-note from the violin; and, without further accompaniment, he thus addressed his forsaken sweetheart:


"You say at your feet that I wept in despair,
And vow'd that no angel was ever so fair?
How could you believe all the nonsense I spoke?
What know we of angels? I meant it in joke,
I meant it in joke;
What know we of angels? I meant it in joke."


When, in his rich, vibrating notes, he had sung the two verses, all the ladies rewarded him by clapping their hands, which was an exceedingly wrong thing to do, considering that they formed no part of the audience. Then Damon says,


"To-day Demaetus gives a rural treat,
And I once more my chosen friends must meet:
Farewell, sweet damsel, and remember this,
Dull repetition deadens all our bliss."


And Laura sadly answers,


"Where baleful cypress forms a gloomy shade,
And yelling spectres haunt the dreary glade,
Unknown to all, my lonesome steps I'll bend,
There weep my suff'rings, and my fate attend."


Here Laura ought to sing the song "Vain is every fond endeavor;" but Lady Adela said to the violinist,

"No, never mind, Syb; no one wants to hear me sing, until the necessity of the case arises. Let's get on to the feast; I think that will be very popular; for we must have lots of shepherds and shepherdesses; and the people will be delighted to recognize their friends. Where's your sketch, Rose? I would have groups round each of the willows, and occasional figures coming backwards and forwards through those rhododendrons."

"You must leave the principal performers plenty of stage," Lionel Moore interposed, laughing. "You mustn't hem us in with supers, however picturesque their dress may be."

And so they went on discussing their arrangements, while the refulgent day was everywhere declaring itself, though as yet no sound of the far-off world could reach this isolated garden. Nor was there any direct sunshine falling into it; but a beautiful warmth of color now shone on the young green of the elms and chestnuts and hawthorns, and on one or two tall-branching, trembling poplars just coming into leaf; while the tulip-beds--the stars, the crescents, the ovals, and squares--were each a mass of brilliant vermilion, of rose, of pale lemon, of crimson and orange, or clearest gold. This new-found dawn seemed wholly to belong to the birds. Perhaps it was their universal chirping and carolling that concealed the distant echo of the highways; for surely the heavily-laden wains were now making in for Covent Garden? At all events there was nothing here but this continuous bird-clamor and the voices of these modern nymphs and swains as they went this way and that over the velvet-smooth lawn.

And now the bewitching Pastora appears upon the scene (but would Mrs. Clive have worn a gold pince-nez at rehearsal?) and she has just quarrelled with her lover Palaemon--


"Insulting boy! I'll tear him from my mind;
Ah! would my fortune could a husband find!
And just in time, young Damon comes this way,
A handsome youth he is, and rich, they say."


The butterfly-hearted Damon responds at once:


"Vouchsafe, sweet maid, to hear a wretched swain,
Who, lost in wonder, hugs the pleasing chain:
For you in sighs I hail the rising day,
To you at eve I sing the lovesick lay;
Then take my love, my homage as your due--
The Devil's in her, if all this won't do." [Aside.


It must be confessed that the pretty and smiling and blushing Miss Georgie Lestrange looked just a little self-conscious as she had to listen to this extremely frank declaration; but she had the part of the coquettish Pastora to play; and Pastora, as soon as she discovers that Damon has no thought of marriage, naturally declines to have anything to do with him. And here came in the duet which had first suggested this escapade:


"DAMON. From flow'r to flow'r, his joy to change,
Flits yonder wanton bee;
From fair to fair thus will I range,
And I'll be ever free.
From fair to fair thus will I range,
And I'll be ever free.

"PASTORA. You little birds attentive view,
That hop from tree to tree;
I'll copy them, I'll copy you,
For I'll be ever free.

"DUETTO. Then let's divide to east and west
Since we shall ne'er agree;
And try who keeps their promise best
And who's the longest free.
Let's try who keeps their promise best